Contemporary art in ekphrastic stories "The Chinese lobster" and "Body art" by A.S. Byatt

The article is devoted to the comparison of the two ekphrastic stories "The Chinese lobster" (1993) and "Body art" (2003) by the contemporary English writer A.S. Byatt. The fictional characters of the art college girls (Peggi Nollet and Daisy Whimple) and their pieces of art are the focus of the research. In both stories contemporary (conceptual and "actual") art contrasts modernists’ pieces of art (Matisse and abstractionists). It is remonstrative and reflects the young college girls’ diseased state. At the same time contemporary art directly appeals to the past, it even parasitizes on it, and is reconstructed through reminiscences to artists-predecessors (Escher and Arcimboldo). Sacred objects, exhibit items of the anatomical museum and natural materials play a special role in contemporary art characterising.